“I can’t find my comb,” Dad says as he comes from the kitchen. Breathing heavily, he collapses to sit on the stairs. “Someone took my comb.”

“Who would take your comb?” Margo asks gently enough, but he is visibly struggling.

“I don’t know, but it isn’t there. I can’t find it.” Eyes clearing, he looks from Margo to me. This isn’t paranoia, I realize. It’s stark honesty. The words come out in a rush, as if he knows how brief his window of lucidity may be. “I can never find things. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. I can’t work. I can’t drive. I can’t finish my crossword puzzle.” Planting his feet apart on the lower tread for balance, he puts straight arms on his pajama knees, his cast barely breaking the cuff. “Listen to me,” he orders, the Tom Aldiss of old. “It’s clear. Right now. She says every old person is like this, but they’re not.”

“She?” Margo asks.

His brow tics as he searches. “Anne,” he finally says, and his blue eyes drill us again. “You’re both here now, so I’m telling you. I don’t want this. I want to end it. I tried to get pills, but my connections are gone. I’d drive over the bluff, but she hides the keys. So, I have a gun.”

We both gasp. I’m telling myself that suicides don’t announce their intentions as clearly as this, and that when they do it’s only a cry for help which we’re here to answer, when Margo says, “Well, you did have one, only we were worried about it being in the potting shed where anyone could get it, so we disposed of it.”

I prepare for an outburst. I’m thinking that he looks frail, that surely Margo and I can subdue him until help arrives. But his thoughts have snagged on something she said.

Incredibly, he smiles. “The potting shed,” he breathes. “That’s where I put it. I forgot.” The smile fades. “See? I don’t remember things. It’s been a long time since I put it there.”

“Did you have it on the boat with you?” Margo asks. “That night?”

I’m thinking of ways to prevent suicide, who to call, how to talk down a man like Tom Aldiss. But Margo is right raising this. It’s an opportunity we can’t ignore.

“What night?” he asks.

“On the boat.”

He gives a quick headshake. “No gun on the boat.” He frowns. “Didn’t I say that?”

“How did you get a gun?” I try, to which he snorts.

“Any fool can get a gun.”

“When did you buy it?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Maybe last year?” His gaze moves to the dining room window, eyes distant again. “It’s self-protection.”